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Some thoughts...


VorianGR

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I am a guy that has followed many mods and despite the fact I have no idea how to mod I know some stuff about what to mod.

I don't know how big the team is or what skills they have so my ideas might not be able to be applied so bare with me:

First of all I don't think it's a good idea to have the mod starting in the books timeline. There is a simple reason. You guys want to be true to the books. However the Total War engine makes the AI to start wars constantly. Even if you make the Tully's allies to the Starks from the start, soon the AI will destroy the alliance (90%of times) leading to "unrealistic" wars between allies. I can't imagine Edmure fighting Robb and I think nobody can.
I know that you have put much work to this and won't change it, but I had to say it.

Anyway the ideas.

a)Areas of recruitment. For example Dorne should be able to field heavy knights in the Marches since there live Dornishmen of Andal decent that fight like the rest of Westeros. Ironborn shouldn't be able to recruit Ironborn outside the islands unless after some time (perhaps a reform)

b)Faction difficulties should be something like this

Lannister: Easy
Stark:Medium
Tyrell:Easy
Martell: Hard
Baratheon:Hard
Arryn:Medium
Greyjoy: Very hard
Tully:Medium-Hard

c)Don't make Tullys a faction but rather make them part of the Kingdom of the North. this would solve the worst AI- unrealistic diplomacy problem.

d)Traits to show family names as I suggested in the other thread.

I might add others later.


I also have some questions:

a)How many provinces? From the maps, they seem too few, the game won't last long like this unless you nerf the armies or do something drastic.
b)Each turn will represent years? Months?
c)What have you done about seasons?
d)Will you have a wildling faction? (Some Scottish and Danish units would fit them)
e)What are your thoughts on cities-castles. If you represent every castle in the book, there won't be enough cities for economy.


That's all :pirate:

I don't criticize you or complain I am gonna play it whatever you do. :thumbsup:

[b]PS: Just saw the suggestions thread!!! LOL. Don't shoot me[/b]
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[quote name='VorianGR' post='1378353' date='May 31 2008, 14.04']First of all I don't think it's a good idea to have the mod starting in the books timeline. There is a simple reason. You guys want to be true to the books. However the Total War engine makes the AI to start wars constantly. Even if you make the Tully's allies to the Starks from the start, soon the AI will destroy the alliance (90%of times) leading to "unrealistic" wars between allies. I can't imagine Edmure fighting Robb and I think nobody can.
I know that you have put much work to this and won't change it, but I had to say it.[/quote]

It will happen. Not a big deal.
[quote name='VorianGR' post='1378353' date='May 31 2008, 14.04']a)Areas of recruitment. For example Dorne should be able to field heavy knights in the Marches since there live Dornishmen of Andal decent that fight like the rest of Westeros. Ironborn shouldn't be able to recruit Ironborn outside the islands unless after some time (perhaps a reform)[/quote]

Already taken care of with the Iron Islands. The Dorne unit roster has not been released so we will have to wait and find out.


[quote name='VorianGR' post='1378353' date='May 31 2008, 14.04']a)How many provinces? From the maps, they seem too few, the game won't last long like this unless you nerf the armies or do something drastic.
b)Each turn will represent years? Months?
c)What have you done about seasons?
d)Will you have a wildling faction? (Some Scottish and Danish units would fit them)
e)What are your thoughts on cities-castles. If you represent every castle in the book, there won't be enough cities for economy.[/quote]

Roughly 70 provinces. Each turn is 6 months, or a year. Seasons are the same I believe.

No wildlings as of now.

No changing of settlements. I believe it is being adjusted so gameplay will not suffer though.

Gampie can go into more detail on these questions.
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[quote]irst of all I don't think it's a good idea to have the mod starting in the books timeline. There is a simple reason. You guys want to be true to the books. However the Total War engine makes the AI to start wars constantly. Even if you make the Tully's allies to the Starks from the start, soon the AI will destroy the alliance (90%of times) leading to "unrealistic" wars between allies. I can't imagine Edmure fighting Robb and I think nobody can.
I know that you have put much work to this and won't change it, but I had to say it.[/quote]
This is an unavoidable problem. The several AI's out there are scripted to expand and expand and expand ever on, regardless of the cost of your neighbouring countries. In the vanilla game this makes more sense than in Westeros, with our precious alliances.

There are 3 main alliances:
Renly-Tyrell
Joffrey-Lannister
Stark-Tully

From my experience in the mod - I only test it until turn 40 or 60 or so - Renly never gets to blows with Tyrell. I made Ashford rebel so they don't share a border (at the start, later on they do). Renly is all wrapped up in his fight against Joffrey (which he always loses) and Tyrell is fighting a bloody war against Lannister. Not to mention they often invade Martell.
Joffrey expands very rapidly. He does not share a border with the Lannisters and this alliance is very firm. I have never seen it broken so far. Lannister is always, always attacking TUlly. In the first 10 turns chances are high that a full stack is besieging Riverrun. They are also very busy with the Tyrells.
The Starks immediately send armies to seize the rebel castles in the North. Tully does the same with the Twins and Fairmarket, sometimes going as far as Banefort. However their expansion always ends because Lannister is beating them badly. So, after a while the Starks have conquered all nearby rebel castles and... what do they do? I do not really know. They are rather passive then, because they are blocked by the Tully's who hold the Twins. Keep in mind that I am using Lusted's improved Campaign AI. He has edited the AI script so it will be less inclined to break alliances. I must say that this is the case. Stark really respects Tully and I haven't seen a war between them (yet). So, I hope this diminishes your concerns a bit.
It is very possible though that over time the relations between Stark-Tully deteriorate and that their alliance eventually ends. I haven't played a 150 turns campaign yet.
However if Arryn conquers the Twins before Tully then Stark has no qualms of engaging the foreigners from the Vale. They are neutral at start.

As to you other questions, I will try to answer them tomorrow. I'm very tired now and hardly slept last night, sorry.
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[quote]a)Areas of recruitment. For example Dorne should be able to field heavy knights in the Marches since there live Dornishmen of Andal decent that fight like the rest of Westeros. Ironborn shouldn't be able to recruit Ironborn outside the islands unless after some time (perhaps a reform)[/quote]
Every faction will have certain units which can only be recruited in their homelands or their capital. Ironmen Raiders for instance can only be recruited in Ten Towers or Pyke. Dornish Spearmen can only be recruited in the Dornish homelands, Knights of the Vale can only be recruited in the Vale, and so forth.
Other units like spear militia, generic knights and peasants can be recruited in every territory.
The reform thing will not be included.

[quote]Lannister: Easy
Stark:Medium
Tyrell:Easy
Martell: Hard
Baratheon:Hard
Arryn:Medium
Greyjoy: Very hard
Tully:Medium-Hard[/quote]
I think it will be, on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being the easiest and 1 the hardest):
Lannister: 9
Tyrell: 10
Renly: 9
Martell: 6
Joffrey: 7
Greyjoy: 3
Stannis: 2
Tully: 5
Arryn: 7
Stark: 7

These are guesses though. In the beta stage things will be more clear.

[quote]c)Don't make Tullys a faction but rather make them part of the Kingdom of the North. this would solve the worst AI- unrealistic diplomacy problem.[/quote]
It's a different approach with its own merits but I think it would make that Stark-Tully faction too powerful. And it would derogate from Edmure"s importance as the lord of Riverrun. Either way, it's too late now to change this.

[quote]d)Traits to show family names as I suggested in the other thread.[/quote]
Probably not in the first release. It would stall the mod too long before I have figured this out.

[quote]a)How many provinces? From the maps, they seem too few, the game won't last long like this unless you nerf the armies or do something drastic.
b)Each turn will represent years? Months?
c)What have you done about seasons?
d)Will you have a wildling faction? (Some Scottish and Danish units would fit them)
e)What are your thoughts on cities-castles. If you represent every castle in the book, there won't be enough cities for economy.[/quote]
a) Well, this is something that has been bugging me a bit, I admit. The other Westeros mod here had 150 provinces or so. That was way too much for my liking because I thought that it would end up in a siegefest where you just have to siege many, many castles just to eliminate one faction. When you look at the vanilla campaign you see that for instance France, one of the strongest nations, has 5 starting provinces and a few rebel provinces nearby. The Italian peninsula has 7 provinces (Milan, Venice, Rome, Bologna, Florence, Genoa and Naples). Spain 8, England about 7-8. In this mod Dorne has 8 regions, Stormlands 6-8, the North 11, Arryn 7, Riverlands 9, the Reach 10, Iron Islands 2, Westerlands 8, Crownlands 5-6, Dragonstone 1. There are mods that boast 199 regions, the hardcoded limit. But I doubt many players ever conquer them all. Building up a faction and making it powerful is more fun, in my opinion. After a while I often lose interest and start a new campaign with a different faction. Nevertheless, I think I will add some extra regions (second Twins, Runestone, Sandstone, Bandallon or Three Towers, maybe Horn Hilll or Honeyholt, another Riverland castle and probably Ashemark). If the beta testers complain that the map is too small I probably will have to redo the map from scratch, bigger this time. A task which I'm not looking forward to. :P
b) Nothing has been decided here as it is not that important. Characters always age in the winters, regardless of turn-year ratio. It only affects the date of events (I think) and there will be almost no events.
c) Seasons remain as they are in vanilla. Maybe change this in a later release by replacing alpine climate textures with snow-like textures in the north.
d) No. See the FAQ for more information.
e) There are 2 huge cities, 2 large cities, 2 cities and several large towns in the game. Yes, there are few settlements. But... don't despair. I will add recruitability of spies and diplomats to fortresses so that factions which don't start with a settlement can recruit those agents as well. As to income, keep in mind that almost all buildings will be built from the start and you won't have to spend your money on construction but on warfare. Income of factions can be increased by:
- increasing the value of trade goods
- increasing farming output
- increasing king's purse
- money scripts for the AI
- lowering unit recruitment/upkeep costs

[quote]PS: Just saw the suggestions thread!!! LOL. Don't shoot me[/quote]
That suggestion thread belongs to a different, dead mod. You did well to start a new thread. :)

As for the rest, Jak o Shadows' remarks are correct.
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OK, I have some extra suggestions which are probably difficult and impossible to implement in the first release. I will write them down just to exist for later use, or just to fantasize.

a)Brotherhood without Banners. It is possible to write scripts spawning rebel armies. The Brotherhood protected villagers from the "foragers" right? So if somebody exterminates the population of a town in Riverlands several small rebel armies spawn around the place.

b)Dorne settlements need to have unrest for anyone except Martells to show how difficult it is to conquer and hold that place.
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[quote name='VorianGR' post='1379974' date='Jun 2 2008, 09.33']a)Brotherhood without Banners. It is possible to write scripts spawning rebel armies. The Brotherhood protected villagers from the "foragers" right? So if somebody exterminates the population of a town in Riverlands several small rebel armies spawn around the place.[/quote]

This is discussed at length in another thread, and the consensus is that it's impossible.
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[quote name='VorianGR' post='1379974' date='Jun 2 2008, 17.33']b)Dorne settlements need to have unrest for anyone except Martells to show how difficult it is to conquer and hold that place.[/quote]
I don't know if unrest values can be adjusted for a specific faction. A workaround could be to spawn small stacks of Dornishmen near a Dornish castle each time it is captured by a faction other than Martell. But that won't be for the first release.

As to the Brother without Banners: what Anatole Kuragin said. :)
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